The 65th Games: Finnick's Story
by CharlotteBlackwood
Summary: This is the story of Finnick Odair and how he won the Hunger Games. First part of the Story of the Games series fun, fun, fun! Enjoy! NOT A ROMANTIC PAIRING
1. Chapter 1

Stella and I were young to win, and we knew it, but I was younger than any winner of the Hunger Games ever. Mags, our mentor, had won the ninth Hunger Games, which had been several generations ago, but she was still sharp as a tack as she looked up over the pair of us.

"Finnick Odair, fourteen," she said, "and Stella Branch, fifteen. A bit young, but not the youngest I've worked with, certainly."

That was true. The girl the year before had been twelve. She'd died in fifteen seconds after getting to be bloodbath. The boy had almost won, but almost doesn't count in the Hunger Games, and Cashmere, a girl from District One managed to spear him right at the end.

District Four hadn't won in almost ten years, and that victor was dead, now.

"Well, we can start work right away, if you're not too tired," Mags continued. "Would you like to start now, or wait until morning?"

We were on the train from District Four to the Capitol, freshly reaped for the games. Stella could barely keep her pretty green eyes open, she was so tired. But she was a volunteer. I hadn't volunteered. I wasn't old enough. I wasn't ready yet.

Why no one volunteered for me, it was difficult to say, but I could guess. Volunteering wasn't quite so common in my district than in Districts One and Two, but it was still a very much accepted and almost expected practice. But when my name was called, when the woman with the silly Capitol Clothes called out, "Finnick Odair!" not a soul stirred.

I used to have a lot of friends a school. But that was before I started growing, started, as my mother liked to say, "becoming a man". It wasn't as though my friends all disappeared over night, but they had slowly but surely decreased in number and reliability from the time I turned thirteen.

By the morning of the reaping, it seemed as though I had not a friend left in the world. But maybe it would be better that way.

Stella and I were not friends, of course, which would make it easier to have to kill her in the arena. Still, I would rather someone else take care of her. She was such a pretty girl… I don't think anyone back home would ever speak to me again if I had to kill her.

It certainly wouldn't gain me any friends, particularly with the boys my age.

"We can start now," I said with a shrug. "Or we can start in the morning. I really don't mind."

"Stella?"

Stella shrugged a little.

"I'm a bit tired," she said honestly. "It's been a long day. I don't mind if you two talk while I go to sleep. I'd prefer we consult separately, anyway."

That wasn't shocking. I hadn't expected us to be allies in the arena. It would certainly make someone else killing her easier if we weren't. She would join up with the Careers in Districts One and Two, and they wouldn't hesitate to take her. She was pretty; she would gain a fair number of sponsors just for that.

Stella went to bed and Mags and I sat watching the television without sound as it replayed the reaping for the third time that day. The boy from District Six was huge.

"Have you thought much about what you'd like your angle to be, Finnick?" Mags asked kindly.

She was a sweet old thing, could have been my grandmother if she wasn't the woman who was my only help in a world where I would be battling for my life. I supposed that would have been rather grandmotherly of her as well, if it wasn't her job.

"No," I admitted. "No, I haven't thought about it much."

Indeed, I hadn't expected to be in the games for another year or two, at the very least. My plans certainly weren't set in stone. Not like Stella's, where she had probably worked out how to kill each and every tribute as she watched the reaping. I had sized them up as well, but not in any sophisticated way.

The boy from District Six was huge. The girl from District Twelve seemed sweet. The Boy from District Seven seemed confident. The girl from District One was rather small. Little of what I gleaned would keep me alive in the arena.

"That's fine," Mags said kindly. "It's sometimes refreshing to start from scratch. It probably means, at least, that you don't have any preconceived notions of grandeur, which can be as dangerous as the arena and other tributes combined."

We talked for hours about what I was good at: Knots, weaving, fishing. It wasn't at all surprising that Mags was a kindred spirit in this regard. We were from District Four, after all.

"The question is," Mags said after a while, tapping her fingers to her lips thoughtfully, "will your skills at trapping fish translate into trapping on land? I've had a good share of good fishermen over the years, but plenty of them floundered around when the Games began. Either there was hardly any water in the arena and they didn't know how to find food or they tried to catch other tributes like fish, but found that land and water weren't enough the same and didn't know how to adjust."

"I can focus on traps," I reasoned. "I can't imagine that it would be too difficult to adjust if I focused on that during training."

"Be careful," Mags cautioned. "You don't want to give away your hand too early. Learn traps, but don't be too good at them during the training sessions. In private sessions, blow them away."

I nodded. That was simple enough. I had plenty of weapons I was plenty proficient enough with to show off a little during the training like tributes from career districts were expected to do and not give away my most valuable skills.

"What sort of weapon do you feel would be most valuable to you?" Mags asked me, pouring some water for the both of us.

That was a very good question. I could handle myself with a knife, a spear… I told her so.

"But I get the sense those aren't your weapons of choice," she said kindly. "What would you take, if you got the chance to pick a weapon out yourself?"

"I guess…"

"No, don't guess," she said firmly. "Say the first thing that instinct tells you."

"A trident," I said without thinking.

A trident…

It certainly wasn't typical Hunger Games fare. The idea of a trident waiting for me in the Cornucopia was ridiculous, especially as I wouldn't have an opportunity to show the Gamemakers any sort of skill with it. There wouldn't be a trident in the training, either.

"Interesting," Mags said, tapping her fingers to her lips thoughtfully again. "I suppose you'll probably make do with knives and spears and the like… there's not likely to be a trident at the Cornucopia."

Obviously.

I was unsure why she'd bothered to ask such a question, but then, she couldn't have known that my answer would have been so impossible. I hadn't even known.

"I can think of a few strategies for your interview," Mags said, smiling.

"Like what?"

I hadn't even considered the interview. I was good at talking to people. Strategy had never come to play in my mind. But with the turn my inter-personal relations had taken recently at home, perhaps I could use all the help I could get.

"Well, there are the standards," she said, "but I think we ought to capitalize on how good looking the pair of you are."

Good looking? Me? Sure, I looked older than I was, but Stella was the good-looking one.

"Tell me, Finnick, do you think you're capable of being charming?"

Charming. First she calls me good-looking, then she asks me to be charming…

"Why?" I asked suspiciously.

Mags just smiled in an absent sort of way and said, "Because your life may depend on it."

But that was all for that night. She insisted I get some rest, because the Capitol would be seeing me quite soon.

It turns out the woman in silly Capitol Clothes was named Meredith. Mags and Meredith were in charge of getting Stella and I to and fro to all our important Capitol appointments, as well as determining our strategies for each thing. Meredith was the one who led me off to my stylist, Minna, or at least, to the prep team.

The prep team – Halkyone, Hugh, and Wendell – didn't do quite so much to me. They waxed my body down, but I didn't have much hair yet, anyway, and thankfully none on my face. They washed me clean and ogled at me a bit, and Halkyone said, "Are you sure you're only fourteen?" but otherwise, they left me alone for Minna.

Minna would have been pretty, had it not been for the make-up, the insane hairstyle, and her sour expression that never seemed to leave her face.

"Aeneas says the girl is very pretty as well," she said, almost more to herself than to me as she examined my naked body. "You'll certainly make a very pretty pair."

Aeneas was Stella's stylist, and I wondered if she might already be done with meeting him, or if he had merely peeked in while the prep team was working on her. I always thought girls would take longer.

Minna took my measurements, told me she would dress me up as a fisherman, and Stella would be dressed as a siren.

I tried to picture Stella as a siren. The picture was nice.

The actual fisherman's outfit I was dressed in when the time came, however, was not anything like any sort of fisherman's outfit I had worn or seen worn in District Four. In fact, "outfit" was a bit of a generous word for it.

There was no shirt. The pants were made of sheer mesh, with a rope knotted around the top to keep them up and cover me well enough that I could be shown on television and not scandalize small children completely. Little was left to the imagination.

Even less was left to the imagination with Stella's "outfit". Her beautiful hair, long and dark, was wild around her face. Seaweed surrounded her in a single coil so that it barely covered her more sensitive parts. I was truly glad of the rope.

Apparently, we did well. Some of the costumes were a fair amount more ridiculous, but ours got excellent reviews from Mags and Meredith. I wondered what Mags wore back in her Games… I tried picturing her in the siren outfit Stella had worn, but the idea was a bit scaring, so I shook it from my mind firmly.

Mags suggested that I work on my interview with Meredith first, so that she could have a bit of time with Stella to work over their strategy before training. She told me to be as charming as possible, and took off with Stella. I took a deep breath and sat down.

"So," Meredith said with a broad smile, a gap between her teeth, "how do you feel about the Capitol so far?"

Charming. Be charming.

"I've never seen quite so many beautiful women before," I said, smirking a little bit.

Meredith chuckled.

"Oh, you charmer, you. And Stella? Is she not beautiful?"

"She's the most beautiful girl I've seen in District Four," I said honestly. "But I must admit, she outshines far fewer in the Capitol than she does back home."

It was a diplomatic answer, I knew. I hadn't seen anyone half as gorgeous as Stella, but it wouldn't do to say that on television unless I was making some sort of declaration of undying love.

I would make no such declaration. Stella was gorgeous, but she was incredibly stuck-up and self-righteous. She could have the affections of every male in District Four for all I could care. I wouldn't want to be bound with her as my wife.

It was a good thing, then, than it would be impossible, for if either of us lived, it would only be one of us.

Training was interesting. Stella practiced her knots, mostly, while I learned more about land-based traps. It wasn't hard to pretend incompetence. Mags was right, the land traps were vastly different from catching fish. Still, I got to the point when I felt competent enough that I would be able to accomplish them well enough when the time came.

I didn't bother with knots. My knots were better and more complex than anything they could have though to teach me. I practiced with a knife, practiced looking for food (in case there was not enough water for fishing), and watched the career tributes with a wary eye, including Stella.

Stella was very good at her work, that being getting the attention of the other career tributes. If they weren't impressed with her skills with a knife, they were certainly impressed by her pretty face and perfect figure. At least, Tristin and Dilan, the boys, were. I doubted Harmony or Cora cared much for another pretty girl stealing the attention of potential sponsors.

I was so busy watching Stella flirt with Tristin and Dilan that I hardly noticed that I was joined at the camouflage station by three girls who were maybe thirteen or fourteen. I recognized them as the girls from Districts Seven, Eleven, and Twelve.

"Hi," said the girl from District Eleven. "My name is Lila. You're with her, aren't you?"

She nodded over to Stella.

I shrugged a little.

"We're from the same district, if that's what you mean. We're not likely to be allies."

"Oh," said the girl from District Seven. "Jack and I will be. Blight says we'll do better if we stick together until there's about six people left. I don't know if we'll last with such a small alliance, though."

"I told you, Ellie," Lila said in a bossy sort of voice, "you and Jack can join Alana and me and we'll be fine. We can take on the careers."

I tried to bite back a smile, but the corners of my lips definitely turned upwards. Eleven, Twelve, and Seven hadn't had half as many victors combined as any one of the career districts. There certainly was strength in numbers and since I wouldn't but joining the careers…

"Can I tag along?" I asked.

The girls looked at me, surprised for a moment, but then Alana (the girl from District Twelve) smiled and said, "Of course you can. I'm Alana, by the way."

"Finnick," I said, holding out my hand. "Are any of you ladies any good at camouflage?"

As it turned out, Ellie was excellent. Lila was excellent with a slingshot, and Alana, while not particularly deadly with a knife, could carve almost anything, including making a decent harpoon or spear out of just wood.

I met Jack not long after. He was the surly sort, obviously born and raised of lumberjacks. He was not as good looking as Ellie, who herself wasn't particularly pretty, but he was certainly handy with an axe. He sized me up, frowning.

"A bit pretty, but he'll do, I suppose, Lila," Jack said with a frown. "We've got more than the careers, now, if he's with us, but I expect they'll make up for it if they don't kill us all off in the Cornucopia."

Pretty? Why did people keep calling me pretty?

I tossed a knife at the wall over his shoulder, but just barely. I wasn't as good at throwing knives as Stella. I preferred getting up-close and personal with my opponent, but it would be difficult to make a point without hurting him that way, so I took the lesser route. He flinched.

"Right," he muttered. "He'll do. Jack," he added, holding his hand out to me.

"Finnick," I said, reaching over his shoulder and snatching up the knife from the wall, ignoring his hand. He probably thought because he was older than me he would be the alpha in the pack, but I wasn't going to sit back and let someone else's choices govern my destiny in the arena. "Finnick Odair."

When I went to dinner, Mags asked if we'd had a productive day at training.

"Yes," Stella said with a smile. "I've made some alliances. I'm joining the career pack."

"Good, good," Mags said. "And you, Finnick?"

I looked down at my stew and smiled slightly.

"I've made some alliances as well," I told them. "I met a few girls at the camouflage station, and the girl from District Eleven and the boy from District Seven have organized a small alliance. I've joined."

Stella raised an eyebrow challengingly.

"You joined that ragtag bunch?" she scoffed. "There's, what, five of you, yes? I'd be willing to wager you won't total above twenty-five on your scores all put together."

I hadn't actually thought about that. What sorts of scores were they going to get, when Alana couldn't even bring herself to draw blood with a knife and Ellie didn't even know how to hold a spear? Still, even if they had low scores, they could be useful to me, and I could probably protect the girls, with a bit of help from Jack.

But it occurred to me that I hadn't paid much attention to Jack. In fact, I had no idea what sort of use he would be at all, apart from the axes, but I could handle with spear and knives well enough. We couldn't even be sure there would be axes available in the Cornucopia, especially if he didn't use that as his skill for the Gamemakers.

Maybe Stella was right. Maybe I had gotten into the most worthless alliance of all, but at least my allies needed me, and didn't just want me around because I looked pretty… Or did they?


	2. The Games Begin

Stella would throw knives for her skill. I didn't have to ask. I knew her well enough to know that's what she felt was her greatest asset. And she was probably right. Her looks could only get her so far in the arena, after all.

I wondered what her interview strategy would be. They would probably sex her up. I wondered if that was what they were doing with me, in a way. I felt very odd about it. If I was so good-looking, why did people seem to hate me so much? I was a whole lot nicer than Stella, but she got whatever she wanted when she pouted those lips and batted those eyelashes.

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I was too nice.

Anyway, we had our time with the Gamemakers, and I was almost certain she threw knives. I spent twenty minutes trapping a dummy with one of the land-based traps I had learned, and then spearing it, first by throwing the spear, then from close quarters. I wanted them to know I wasn't limited by distance. I'm not sure they were even paying attention to me, but they must have seen something.

When the scores were released, Stella and I sat on either side of Mags, watching the screen.

Most of the other Careers got eights, except for Dilan, from Distract Two. Whatever his skill was earned him a ten. When they put up District Four, all of our jaws dropped. Stella had been given a ten. I had been given an eleven.

Eleven? Elevens were rare. Elevens were difficult. Elevens were a target on your back.

But I wasn't the only one with an eleven. After a few more tens came out (apparently, we had quite the group this year) of Districts Five and Six (although the boy from Six got a four), Jack from District Seven also was given an eleven, and Stella let out a squeak of surprise.

Really, it was a good thing he did, because Ellie only got a two.

In fact, Stella had to swallow her pride a bit, because while her group amounted to forty-four, all said and done, my alliance added up to thirty-six, largely due to myself and Jack, of course, but Alana had managed a cool seven, which caught me by surprise.

One thing was certain, I would have to keep my eye on her and Jack if I wanted to make it out alive. We would have to turn on each other eventually.

Minna had my outfit ready for the interviews. It was less… revealing than the last, although Stella's hardly was. I was in a smart blue suit, or I guess you could call it a suit. There were pants and a jacket, but no shirt. At first I thought Minna had forgotten it, but then I realized we were still going with showing skin, so I didn't ask her about the shirt. They could do many things to me in the Capitol, but they wouldn't make me act like a fool.

I just would have to be almost naked with pride.

Stella, though… Aeneas had really outdone himself. Her dress was a sheer blue, ocean-like fabric with a barely-existent bathing suit underneath, so that the mesh was just a curtain of sea foam covering her body after a day at the ocean. Or at least, that's what it made me think of, so the audience was probably thinking something quite similar.

When we arrived, I looked around at the other tributes. Harmony, the girl from District One, was in a skimpy but less obviously revealing white dress covered in rhinestones.

Harmony went first actually, as Caesar Flickerman came onto the stage, greeted the camera, and called her up. She was all sweet and giggly, but we knew that if that pretty little girl earned an eight, she'd done something at least dangerous, if not deadly.

"Tell me, Harmony," Caesar said with a smile, "what inspired you to volunteer for the Games?"

"My siblings all volunteered as well," Harmony said, "but in their years there were a lot of volunteers and others were chosen. I'm just lucky, I guess," she said with a little giggle. "It's really such an honor. My family is proud and jealous all at once!"

Dilan of District Two was bold and confident. He probably had some of the weaker candidates shaking in their boots, and I couldn't help but notice that Ellie looked a fair bit shaken.

But I wasn't really listening until Stella got up there.

"Now, Miss Stella Branch," Caesar said happily, "you scored a ten which, in and of itself is quite an achievement, but you also happen to have come here with a boy who has scored an eleven. Are we likely to see you and Finnick taking down the competition together?"

"I doubt that," Stella said sweetly, her voice a sort of purr that made my head spin just a little bit.

Where on earth did she learn how to do that and how dare she unleash such a power on the world?

"Oh, that's such a shame!" Caesar said. "After all, ten and eleven, the same District… that's a deadly combination right there!"

"I suppose it could be," Stella said, batting those eyelashes. "But it would also make us quite a target for everyone else. I think I'd be a bit safer without Finnick."

There was a massive flaw to this argument, and I spotted it right away. Stella had gotten a ten, so she ought to be able to defend herself whether she was a target or not. She wasn't some defenseless little girl who needed to run and hide. But Caesar didn't point out this flaw. He never pointed out flaws in arguments, because it was his job to make each champion look their absolute best.

When my three minutes came, Caesar welcomed me forward and shook my hand eagerly.

"Finnick Odair," he said, "I think you've already captured the hearts of every girl in Panem, and then you go and get an eleven! Do you have any tricks up your sleeve for us, Finnick?"

I couldn't help but laugh a bit at that.

"Well, Caesar," I said, "If I had any tricks, I certainly wouldn't be sharing them before the Games, now, would I?"

"No, I suppose not," he said with a laugh, and the audience chuckled. "Now, tell me, Finnick, what's it like to be a part of the best-looking pair in the Games?"

I paused a moment, then said slowly, "Well, Stella's clearly the better half of that equation." There was some sort of tittering noise in the audience. "But I think it's an honor to even be here, representing my District. And really, Minna and Aeneas have done wonders."

"Yes, absolutely," Caesar said with a nod. "We have such great stylists, and yours have really outdone themselves this year. Now, what on earth did you do to get that eleven, do you think?"

The smile crept onto my face before I could stop it, but I left it there, thinking it might be charming, intriguing even.

"I'm afraid I can't say," I said honestly. "You'll have to wait and see, won't you?"

The biggest surprise was Alana, of course, of District Twelve. Her District had only ever had two winners, and the only one still alive was Haymitch Abernathy, a drunkard from the second Quarter Quell. In a way, I had hypothesized that he was a part of the reason Twelve didn't seem capable of producing a winner. He certainly hardly did a thing for his competitors. But Alana seemed intent on making a way for herself, with or without him.

"I live in the town back home," she explained to Caesar. "My father is a carpenter and woodworker, so I've been carving since I could hold a knife."

"Think you can do other things with a knife?" Caesar inquired.

Alana frowned slightly, looking honestly thoughtful.

"I don't really know, to be honest. I've obviously never tried. But I guess we'll have to see when the time comes. I don't think I can win. Anyone from Twelve is a long shot, I know, but I'd like to stay alive as long as I possibly can."

"That's always a good idea," Caesar said with a smile and a nod.

I wondered if she really could kill someone, and hoped she could, because I didn't think Jack and I would want to protect her and Ellie and Lila all the time. Alana, at least, seemed to have some use to her, but would she be able to protect herself?

Stella's alliance was starting to look a lot better every minute the Games got closer.

The night before the Games, I fell asleep shivering, wondering what the arena would look like, wondering if I'd make it past the bloodbath alive, wondering if any of my allies would survive to the second day with me, if I survived myself. I wondered if I would have to kill Stella, or if she would kill me. Did we have the heart to kill each other?

She did, that was certain. I knew Stella well enough that if she could kill any living thing, which I was sure she could, she would kill any living thing that got in her way.

Standing in the glass tube, looking at Minna, who had helped me get dressed in my tribute outfit, the small rope knotted around my wrist that my mother gave me as a token, my heart could be heard pounding in my head.

The disc I stood on rose up and I looked out at the lay of the land. Forest. Lake of some sort. An area that looked like hills. Cornucopia right on the edge of the forest. What sort of trees were those? They didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before. There was a heavy, persistent mist around the trees. I had read about tropical forests in my books at school, but I didn't think they still existed.

But of course, the Capitol could make one if they wanted. They had the ability to do a lot of things that seemed impossible, given the time.

From where I stood I could see there was no trident, not that I was particularly surprised, but there were almost always knives in the backpacks, and I could see a few spears.

Stella I couldn't see, but Ellie was on one side of me, Harmony on the other. The pounding of my heart in my ears was getting louder, and I wondered what it must be like for someone like Ellie, who hadn't been training for this for years. Her name had literally been picked out of a bowl and her life changed. I had always hoped to compete, but not so soon.

She must be terrified.

But then, I'm a bit terrified, too.

There's a sound… the signal to go. We all make a mad dash toward the Cornucopia, except for Emilie, the girl Stella's age from District Nine. She makes a beeline for the hills, completely ignoring the Cornucopia. Maybe she hopes her allies will get her weapons and food and she'll find them a hiding place. Maybe she doesn't have allies, and she's simply going to hide out, waiting for the rest of us to kill each other.

Either way, it's a bold move for a girl with a five.

I've barely reached the Cornucopia when Ellie, who's a quickly little thing, falls to the ground, a spear in her side. I see the boy from District Ten pulling it out and turning to gather up a bunch of backpacks. I grab a spear and turn to the packs just in time to see Blaise, the boy from District Five, stick a knife in Harmony's back and then pull out and cut Dilan's throat before Dilan can loose the spear in his hands.

Blaise grabs the spear, two packs, and runs for the forest.

Two Careers dead.

Jack signals me, and we gather up some packs, find the girls, and head for the forest, opposite from where I saw Blaise enter. As he killed two Careers signal-handedly, I hated to be the third on his kill list.

"What have we got?" Jack asked, panting as we found a little gathering of trees that blocked us well from sight.

"We've got a good place to rest and camouflage, that's what we've got," snapped Lila.

"Well, we haven't got Ellie, Princess," Jack snapped. "In case you didn't notice, she got a spear through the side." He shook his head almost sadly. "I told her to run for the forest and wait for us in one of the nearer trees, but she said she could help carry things, wouldn't listen. Anyway, which one of you feels confident trying to camouflage us?"

Alana did her best, but she really wasn't a substitute for Ellie.

"How many do you think died?" she asked with a trembling hand as she painted some mud on my skin, trying to make me look like the bark of the vined trees around us.

"I saw three go down in the short time we were there," I answered with a shrug. "It's tough to say. Maybe six or so."

Jack was going through the backpacks.

"Sounds like a safe bet. Did you see Blaise? That boy was a beast. Isn't he only twelve?"

"Yup," I said. "Twelve years old and very, very good with a knife. He did get a ten, after all."

"So he did," Jack said, frowning. "Do any of you know these trees? They don't look familiar. And I know trees."

"False," Lila said snidely. "You know trees from your District. You haven't studied every tree in existence, Jack. Don't be so superior."

It was very difficult not to laugh. Lila, of course, had no idea how silly and superior she sounded, but I knew it was the fear talking. She was nervous, so she was lashing out.

"Don't you go blowing up at me, Princess," Jack snapped. "Anyway, I'm going to get water from the lake. We're not that far from it, here. Finnick, keep an eye on the girls. I shouldn't be long."

But he was long. Three hours later, Lila had stopped complaining about lack of water and the three of us were very, very worried.

"Maybe the water was poisonous?" Lila whispered, shaking slightly.

It wouldn't be the first time, but something told me that a whole lake of poisonous water wasn't what the Gamemakers had in store for our dooms this time.

"I think I ought to check it out," I said softly. "I'm the best with water. Alana, take the spear. Kill anyone or anything that comes near and doesn't say Ellie's name first."

"What if it's Jack?" she whispered, clearly terrified.

I shrugged.

"He should have been back sooner. Something's not right, and if he's betraying us, better to kill him now than let him live and give him the chance to do us all in in our sleep. I'll be back soon, an hour at most."

I made my way through the trees as quickly and as quietly as possible. It was starting to get dark already, and I wondered how much longer we had until they flashed the faces of the dead in the sky.

When I reached the lake, it wasn't difficult to figure out what happened to Jack.

The pack he had brought with him was empty on the lakeshore, and there was a pool of dried blood. I stayed in my hiding spot, thankful that Alana had done a decent enough job with the camouflage. The question was who had killed Jack?

I scanned the edges of the forest by the lake and on the hillside of the far bank, and my eyes caught a figure crouching over a pile of packs on the corner of a hill, not doing a very good job of hiding. It was the girl from District Ten.

There was no point waiting around with the girls unprotected when I knew Jack's fate so I hurried back through the forest as quickly as possible to our little protected clearing.

"Ellie," I said as I neared the clearing, loud enough so the girls could hear me and quietly enough that anyone else nearby shouldn't be able to. I heard their sighs of relief as I entered the clearing, and they looked up at me expectantly. "Jack is dead. The girl from Ten ambushed him at the lakeside. Please tell me there's something of use in the packs."

"Knives," Lila said, looking shocked that Jack had died so quickly. "A small bit of food in one, and knives in one, and a slingshot. It's not enough to live on for even a week unless we figure out how to hunt and gather, even with Jack gone."

I sighed.

"What I wouldn't give for some proper bread right now," I sighed, sitting down, looking at the meager rations (mostly fruit) from the Cornucopia. "If we eat too much fruit and not enough other things we'll be sick. This isn't proper food. We need bread."

And, as if I had said some sort of magic words, a silver parachute dropped a medium-sized box right into our clearing. Inside was twelve District Four green-tinted rolls.

I had sponsors.

And judging by how soon and readily Mags had gifted me, I had a lot of sponsors.

We were going to be just fine.

"Wow," Alana gasped, looking at the rolls. "What do you think, every other day until they're gone, we each take one?"

"Every day," I said softly.

Alana's eyes widened. Something in her expression told me that the idea of eating bread every day was a new one.

"That seems a bit… extravagant," she said slowly. "For the Hunger Games, I mean."

"He makes a good point, though," Lila said thoughtfully. "If all we eat is fruit, we'll be sick fast. Every other day is fine, but if Finnick thinks we can risk it, than we go for it. We'll need the carbohydrates if we need energy anyway. We'll need some meat, though. We can't just live on this."

"Once we figure out how to get rid of the girl from Ten," I said softly, "We'll try our hand at fishing. I don't think I'm ready to try hunting on land, and she's guarding the lake fairly well."

Alana's eyes widened and she whispered, "What if we die of thirst?"

"We won't," Lila snapped.

"Don't worry," I sighed. "I'll kill her before it comes to that. And anyway, she can't stay where she is forever. She's a sitting duck for the Careers. I expect she'll move on in a day or two."

"I hope so," Alana muttered, but her words were almost completely covered by the sound of music. They were about to show faces in the sky.

Seven had died in the bloodbath, including the three we saw and not counting Jack's death by the lakeside. Somewhere, Stella was watching the real, down to two allies and taking note that I was as well.

The Games had really begun.


	3. The Coming Storm

Nothing happened on the second day.

That wasn't entirely true, of course. Alana found a small patch of edible berries near our grove and Lila accidentally hit a rabbit with a slingshot (purely luck, she assured us), but we ate the meat raw, too afraid to attempt a fire so soon into the games and unsure of how to save the meat for a time when we could actually cook it. None of us knew how long it took for rabbit meat to go bad.

But no one was injured. We didn't have a problem with the arena. Nobody died that day.

Nothing happened on the second day.

The third day, however, was a bit of a different story. Not for us, of course. We merely ate more bread, berries, apples, refreshed our camouflage, checked to see if Ten was still guarding the lake (she was), and told stories about our childhoods.

There were, however, two deaths on the third day. The boys from Three and Twelve were put up in the sky, and I saw Alana crying that night as I feel asleep. She had insisted on keeping watch, probably so that neither of us could see her cry. I didn't comfort her.

The fourth day was a bit more interesting. Nobody died, but for some reason, Ten had vacated the lake, possibly in search of food, possibly to keep from being in one place too long, but whatever the reason, she had left, so I was able to get water, and so were the girls.

We also bathed in the lake while I attempted to spear some fish. I made the girls stay far away from me as they bathed so that they disturbed the water around them and the fish looked for a stiller place, which was right where I stood. I managed to spear a few, but Alana's scream distracted me on the third fish (they were rather small).

"What's wrong?" I called.

"Something stung me!"

In the water, something had stung her, which could only be bad.

"Did you see it?" I said. "Do you know what it was?"

Many things that stung could be easily treated by things we had available to us in the arena, like human urine, but there were some things, created by the Capitol for battle, which were much more difficult to work with. I held my breath, hoping it would be something as simple as one of us peeing on her foot.

"It was long, thin," Lila called. "I dunno, it looked a bit like an eel, like I studied in school."

That wasn't necessarily horrible, but there was a variety of eel breed by the Capitol with an incredibly potent poison. They were called eelrays, because of the properties of a stinging ray, which they carried, but the sting was far worse than any sort of eel or ray could deliver. It was a fast-acting poison that literally made the blood boil.

"Was there some sort of pinching feeling?" I called. "Did it feel like pinching, or like a shock? This is very important, Alana!"

But she didn't even have to answer; because moments later, I felt a pinching in my right calf and I knew we were going to die.

"Out of the water, now!" I roared, hoping to spare Lila, at least. The three of us scrambled to shore, Lila supporting Alana, whose leg was already starting to twitch. "They're eelrays," I snapped, crawling over to the girls. "The poison's quick and deadly."

Tears sprung into Alana's eyes.

"Finnick, it hurts," she whimpered. "I feel like my leg is on fire."

I kissed her hand.

"I know, sweetheart," I whispered. "Be brave, okay? Tell me about your sister, again."

"Is there anything you can do?" Lila snapped before Alana could say a word.

"I need medicine," I hissed. "I can't do anything for either of us unless there's some sort of medicine! This isn't natural, it's a mutt, and there's no natural remedy!"

Another silver parachute fell from the sky, with a small bag. In the bag were two syringes with equal measures of a thick blue fluid.

"It seems you've got generous sponsors," Lila said bitterly.

"Don't sound so angry about it," I snapped. "I could save all of our lives. Now stick this in her leg, just above the sting. I'll do mine."

My hands shook, but I managed to hit a vein just above my own sting.

"Tell me about your sister," I said to Alana, who was still shaking with fear, so much that Lila and I had to hold down her leg to find the vein. "Tell me a story about her."

"Kylli," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Kylli's seven. She… she thinks she has a crush on the neighbor boy, because he kisses her on the cheek. I – oh, Finnick, it hurts!"

"It's okay," I whisper, petting her hand, watching Lila push the blue fluid into Alana's bloodstream and praying it wasn't too late for her leg. "It's going to be okay, now tell me, tell me about the neighbor boy and Kylli."

She went off into a story she'd told two days earlier about how the neighbor boy had asked to marry her sister one afternoon the year before, and how everyone laughed because he was just five and the girl was six and the adults all thought it was cute.

It was a bit cute, I had to admit, and it was nice to think of things other than staying alive and everyone around me dying.

After about twenty minutes, Alana was well enough to return back to our clearing, where Lila tried her hand at camouflage (Alana didn't feel up to it) and we set up our camp, eating the fish raw. Alana fell asleep quickly, so Lila and I kept each other company for a while, not feeling safe without someone watching over Alana in her condition.

"Do you think any of us have a chance?" Lila whispered. "I mean, Jack had an eleven, and he died. Two Careers are already dead. Do you think there's any hope?"

Hope. What a funny thing, in the Hunger Games. Did I hope I would win? Of course I did. But _was_ there any hope of winning?

"I don't know," I murmured. "How old are you, Lila?"

"Fourteen," she whispered back. "You?"

"Same."

"Nobody our age has won in years," she said. "The more I think about it, the worse our chances are."

I nodded.

"You know, we'll have to part ways eventually," I said. "All three of us can't win. At some point, we've got to try to kill each other, too. If we make it that long."

"I know," she whispered. "But I don't think I'll make it that long. I don't think I could kill somebody. I had a hard enough time killing that rabbit the other day, Finnick. I'm not cut out for this."

And she wondered why she didn't have any sponsors. Nobody wanted to sponsor a tribute who openly admitted that they weren't cut out for the Games. People wanted to sponsor a victor, not waste their money on someone like Lila, depending on others to survive and hoping she didn't have to kill somebody.

"Do you think you could kill Stella?" she whispered. "I mean, I know you two aren't competing together, but she's still from your home. It's different for us. The boys from our Districts are already dead."

I didn't answer her for a moment. It was a good question, I knew, because it was one I had been asking myself ever since my name was drawn at the reaping. The real question was what should I say to the cameras?

"I don't want to, I'll admit," I said softly. "Just like I don't think Jack would have wanted to have to kill Ellie if it came down to it, or even Tristin and Harmony. Nobody wants to kill their one piece of home. But I think I could do it, if someone else doesn't kill her first."

"Did you know her well," Lila said, "before the reaping?"

I shrugged.

"I knew her, yeah. We went to school together. But I don't think anyone knows Stella well. She's one thing to your face and something completely different to someone else's face. I'm not even sure Stella knows Stella. I – I think I did know her once, when we were little kids, but I don't think she's been anything other than a bundle of personas for years."

There was silence between us for a few moments as we digested what I had just said. I hadn't really meant to say so much out loud, and wondered what people would think of what I had told the whole of Panem about Stella. What would her sponsors think? And surely she had sponsors, because she was gorgeous and deadly. It was a recipe for the perfect victor, a face the Capitol would enjoy looking at for years to come. A face the prep teams would enjoy painting and a body the stylists would enjoy draping (for you couldn't really call what they had done with her "dressing").

Yes, Stella would make a perfect victor.

"Who do you think will die next?" I asked conversationally. "Still quite a few of us left, really."

"True," Lila said, handing me half an apple, which she had just cut. "I'm not really sure I want to start making bets on other people's lives."

I laughed.

"Not so morbid yet? All right, sweetheart. I might guess Leonidas would go next. I don't think he and Evie were working together. I'm pretty sure they were playing enemies during the time in the Capitol."

"Not everyone is as they pretend to be," Lila reasoned.

"True," I admitted. "And there's always Emilie. She definitely made a bold statement, forgoing the Cornucopia."

"I think it was preservation," Lila said with a shrug. "I think she knew she wouldn't survive the bloodbath. Ellie should have done the same, run off and hid, waiting for us. She is – was – good at hiding."

It was true, Ellie should have run, but reminding ourselves of it time and time again wasn't going to bring her back.

And she would have had to die, eventually, anyway.

"Anyway, I think the Careers are going to drop like flies this year," Lila said carefully. "I'm sure you've noticed they've lost as many as we have. And the way they all looked at each other in training, sizing each other up. I think they're all a bit paranoid. If they go enough days without a kill, they're going to start turning on each other just to feel as though they're being productive. I mean, that we know of, none of them have had a kill yet. And you must have seen the way Stella and Cora were looking at each other, like all they wanted was to slit the other's throat."

I _had_ noticed, of course. But Stella looked at just about everyone that way when they weren't looking, so I hadn't put much store by it. Of course, now she actually _was_ trying to kill people, so maybe I should have paid more attention.

"Tell me what life's like in District Eleven," I said conversationally, taking another bite of my apple.

She told me about the orchards where she had grown up.

"When I was a little girl," she said, "I would climb the trees, picking the fruit at the top that the tall men and machines couldn't reach, on the branches too fragile to hold anyone else's weight. It's beautiful in the treetops, Finnick, like a whole other world. For a while, I could tell myself I was free as a bird, but I grew up and I couldn't climb as high as before without disrupting the trees. You know, even the birds aren't free, Finnick. The Capitol owns all of us. Sooner or later, our imagined freedom comes to an end."

I knew we couldn't be on television at that point, because there was no way the Capitol would have aired that to Panem.

"It's either really a brave or foolish thing to say," I whispered.

She shrugged.

"I – I didn't tell anybody this, and maybe nobody remembers, but my Uncle Griffith died in the games, in the Quarter Quell. I wasn't even six months, so I don't remember it, but nobody in my family has forgiven the Capitol for taking him from us. I'm going to die anyway, Finnick. I know I will. Tomorrow's as good as any day, and I may as well say what's on my mind." She flicked a leaf off her camouflaged skin. "Tell me about District Four."

I looked up at the night sky, covered in clouds.

"It rains in the summer," I said. "The sea gets warmer, and the air and we get rain. It's not very good for fishing. But sometimes, when the weather is just right, you can go out to the shore and see for miles. I used to think there was something on the other side of the ocean, but I don't think so anymore. If there were something other than Panem on the other side of the sea, I think we would have talked with them by now, traded… something." I chuckled. "Anyway, last year on my birthday a few kids my age and I went down to the shore and stared out at the horizon as the sun went down. You probably haven't seen the sun set on the ocean, but it's beautiful, Lila. I've tried a hundred times to write the perfect poem to describe it, but it never quite works out good enough. The Capitol has a lot of beautiful things, but I've never seen anything as beautiful as the sunset on the sea."

"Do you go to the sea often with your friends?" Lila whispered.

"They aren't my friends," I said. "They were, but they're not anymore."

She frowned.

"Why not? Did you have a falling out? I wouldn't think it would matter now, not in light of what you're facing. They're probably supporting you anyway."

"No," I muttered. "Nothing like that. I – I don't know what I did wrong. One day I had lots of friends, and then suddenly, over the last year, nobody wants anything to do with me. I don't think I changed, but my mother says I have. I mean, I grew a bit, but everybody does that."

Lila smiled at me wryly.

"You mean you matured."

"I guess so," I said with a shrug. "I'm still a kid, though."

She laughed.

"Finnick, were your friends before boys or girls?"

"Boys," I said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. What sort of thirteen-year-old boy made friends with girls? I had only befriended Lila and Alana because they were helping my survival.

She was grinning at me through the dark.

"Finnick, they're jealous of you. That's why they aren't talking to you anymore, why they stopped being your friend. They're jealous because you matured well and you'll get all of the female attention. Nobody's going to be able to compete with you. You're gorgeous."

It was a very good thing it was dark, because I was sure I was blushing. I had never heard such a silly thing in my life. Firstly, why should they turn away from me for something I didn't even do? Secondly, what was there to be jealous of? I'd hardly ever even spoken to a girl; I doubted I'd be much competition. But… did she call me 'gorgeous'?

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," I muttered.

She laughed again and said, "Finnick, you're absolutely delicious. I mean, you're perfectly tanned and your eyes are like pools that someone could just fall into. And you just have presence, you know? Stella, she's very pretty, but she's all fake. You're a real person with the body of a god. You're still a bit young, but I bet once you turn sixteen you'll be beating them off with a stick."

If I turned sixteen, I reminded myself bitterly, but there was no point saying that out loud when the words hung so obviously on the air without being said.

"That's why you've got so many sponsors, you know," she said with a sigh. "I bet Stella and Harmony have lots, too. Or at least, Harmony did, you know, before she died. It's also why I don't have any at all."

"I don't think so," I whispered. "I think you're problem is you don't believe in yourself, Lila. It's like you don't even want to win."

She laughed.

"Oh, Finnick, do you really think winning is a victory? You may make it out of the arena, but you'll never really live again. The Capitol may have owned you before, but they will have an interest in the victor, and you'll never have another nights' peaceful sleep until the day you die." She took a bite of her apple, chewed it thoughtfully and said, "It's like I said, tomorrow's as good as any day."

She was giving me a sign. She was going to die tomorrow, and she knew it, somehow. It was like she was asking them to kill her, begging them, but telling me as much as she could before she did go.

"And what would I do without you, eh, Lila?" I said charmingly as possible, well aware that there were probably cameras on us, although they wouldn't be broadcasting her mutinous words to the nation. But the Gamemakers and politicians would certainly be watching.

"You and Alana would probably have to split when I died, so you didn't get too attached," she said calmly, as if discussing how to divide up the rations. "You would have to start practicing whatever skill it was that earned you an eleven from the Gamemakers. And you need to be willing to kill them, Finnick, all of them. Alana, Stella, even Emilie, because you're the only one who can survive the afterwards, except for maybe Tristin, but who wants a victor from District One, anyway?"

I gave her a nervous sort of laugh as she leaned in and whispered in my ear, so softly that I almost didn't hear what she said.

"Make them pay," she whispered, "no matter how long it takes. You're the only one of us who can withstand the storm."


	4. Lila

Day five made up for all the lack of interesting occurrences on the previous days and then some. Lila insisted on keeping watch that night, insisting that I needed to be well rested. In a way, there was no flaw in her argument. After all, I was the one with the highest score, the protector of our alliance. I needed to be sharp, alert. And yet, I was terrified to close my eyes, not because I thought Lila would hurt me, but because I thought she might hurt herself.

It shouldn't have scared me. I wanted to win.

And yet, somehow, I was absolutely and utterly terrified.

Alana felt much better when we woke up, but she was thirsty.

"We'll be fine if we don't go swimming again," Lila pointed out, but I was hesitant. There were two of them, and I couldn't keep an eye on Lila if I was keeping an eye on Alana. The girl from District Ten might have come back. The Careers might have taken the lake. It was risky to just take off for water. Still, the aftereffects of the poison and medicine were making me thirsty as well, and I knew we needed water.

"Fine," I said. "Let's be careful, though. Be as silent as possible and let me go in front. We don't know who's filled the vacancy since we left the lake yesterday."

Unsurprisingly, Lila was very good at moving silently through the woods, but Alana was a bit less so. If it weren't for the fact that she was so light, she probably would have alerted every living thing in the arena to our location, and I was sure she stepped on absolutely every twig imaginable on the way. I made them stop just in front of the lake, a few rows of trees back from the edge while I went forward to check.

It was a very good thing I did because there in the sun, attempting very poorly to catch fish, was the girl from District Ten. Her back was to me, but she had a spear in her hand. I had left my spear with the girls. From the distance I was at, I wasn't sure if I could hit her with my knife and kill her in a single blow, and if she turned out to be stronger than she looked, she might be able to at least wound me with the spear before she died.

As I weighed my options she stiffened, looking at something I couldn't see on my left. Slowly, softly, she retreated into a bunch of trees on my right, still watching that spot intently. Then, I saw it too.

The boy from District Eight was creeping very conspicuously along the edge of the forest, a knife in hand, eyes on the water. From the way he was eyeing it greedily, I figured he probably hadn't had a thing to drink since we got into the arena. He crept closer to the shore, checking left and right quickly for other tributes, then as soon as he bent over to have a drink, Ten loosed her spear and it was in his side before he even managed to drink a drop.

She rushed forward, gathering up her spear and retreating back to the hills. I took a deep breath, not wanting to be the next victim of her spear, waiting until she was truly well out of the way before turning back to the water. There was no hovercraft for the fallen tribute yet, as they knew I was still there, and it appeared someone else was in the vicinity as well.

Blaise.

He was running wildly through the woods, as if running away from something, or someone, and so I stayed perfectly still. He reached the shoreline without the girl from Ten reappearing, which made me almost certain she'd gone off looking for food she didn't have to fish for. But when Blaise saw the body of the boy from District Eight, he leaned over it, sticking his hand in the wound to check if the blood was warm.

I knew it had to be, and I tensed.

Then he turned, looked around him as if he wondered who had killed the boy, because whoever he was running from hadn't been there. Perhaps he thought anyone else would be easy prey. Which meant he was running from the Careers.

He looked around carefully, as if trying to discern where the killer might be, and fixed his eyes just a tree over from me, carefully inching toward the forest. He didn't see me. I could just let him go past in his vain search.

But then he would find the girls.

Before he reached the woods, I carefully threw a knife directly at his stomach. He was small, only twelve, so the blow knocked him to his knees as he struggled to hold in the blood that was pouring out from around the knife. The girls heard his cry and I heard them approaching, which was rather stupid of them.

"Don't worry," I said. "It's just Blaise."

We stepped out of the trees together and bent down over him.

"Was he attacking you?" Alana whispered, kneeling in front of him, looking at the wound.

"No, but he would have done you if he'd found you, which is where he was headed," I sighed. "What are you running from, Blaise? Who's got you scared?"

He looked up at me with shocked eyes.

"ANSWER ME!" I roared.

"Careers," he rasped. "I was with them, after I killed Harmony and Dilan; they decided I'd be… be useful."

"And they tried to kill you?" Alana said, frowning.

"Not yet," he moaned. "I was next."

"What do you mean?" I demanded. "Who did they kill?"

"Stella," he said through gritted teeth. "She's gone mad with paranoia. She – she killed Cora while we were all supposed to be sleeping, while she was on watch. I saw her. When we traded watch, I ran for my life."

Alana's eyes were wide with fear. I wasn't shocked, though. I was a little surprised she'd started killing allies so early, but there might be more to the story.

"Please," Blaise whispered through gritted teeth. "Please, just finish me."

I nodded. He was a boy, twelve years old. He hadn't asked to be in the Games. It would be cruel of me to just let him bleed out. So I pulled the knife out of his gut and took a deep breath, watching Alana close her eyes before I brought it down hard on his jugular, taking a massive chunk out of his neck.

He was dead in seconds.

I covered the knife in the sand of the shore, making to wipe it off, but Alana must have opened her eyes, because she screamed and I looked up to see Lila standing in the lake, twitching.

She'd gotten herself stung, using the distraction of Blaise's story and death to evade my protection. She was close enough to the shore that Alana and I were able to lift her out of the water and get her to shore.

"I need medicine," I said frantically. "I need medicine!"

But no silver parachute came, and Alana was crying.

"I don't understand," she sobbed. "Why did they save me but not her?"

"Because," Lila whispered. "Finnick's not in danger and nobody wants me in the arena anymore, with the things I'm bound to say." She winced. "Finnick, it hurts."

I didn't know what to do. Should I let her blood boil, let her die a painful death? Killing her with the knife wouldn't be much quicker, and risking the poison getting on the knife… I wasn't sure I could do that.

"I – I can't, Lila," I choked. "The poison–"

"I know," she said through gritted teeth. "You heard Blaise. Kill Stella. Don't let her talk you out of it."

Her grip tightened around my wrist and she gasped out in pain, shrieking as we saw even the little blood vessels in her eyes twitch, the blood in her visibly boiling.

It was seconds and she was dead.

For a moment, Alana and I just sat there, staring at her body. Even knowing it would happen, even being aware of how it would happen… nothing could have prepared us for that sight, and we were left sitting on the shore, surrounded by three corpses.

"Ten left," Alana whispered finally. "We're over halfway there, and it's only been five days."

Lila's words from the night before came back to me. I would have to kill Alana eventually, I knew.

"We can't stay together," I sighed. "I don't want this to come down to you and me. Do you think you can manage on your own if I give you one of the knives?"

"I guess," Alana said quietly.

"Come on," I said. "Let's go back to our clearing, split the supplies, and go from there, okay?"

We made our way back in silence.

When we reached the clearing, I split the supplies we had left into two packs, sticking a knife in one of them and handing it to Alana.

"Should we leave at the same time, then?" she said. "If one of us leaves first, that sort of gives an unfair advantage to the one who leaves second. I think it's fairer if we leave at the same time."

I wanted to scream at her that there was nothing fair about any of it, that we were fighting a battle that wasn't our fault, wasn't anybody's fault, but the Capitol at this point. But as Lila had known, saying such things allowed was like asking for death. I wondered if she had guessed when she chose her demise that it would have been half as painful as it ended up being.

District Eleven would be mourning the loss of their second tribute that night, but they were used to that.

We took off in opposite directions, me toward the lake and her deeper into the forest. I stayed hidden in the trees, climbing up into one of the funny vined trees and keeping a close watch on the lake. As I watched them put the faces of the dead in the sky, I began absently weaving a net out of the vines in the tree. They were sturdy, almost as good as the rope we use in District Four. I wondered if Stella knew this.

Then I wondered if Stella actually could weave a net.

She probably could. She'd never really learned knots properly, but she wouldn't have had to. She got other students to do her knotting assignments for her in class, ever since we were children. Apparently her thin little fingers were as nimble as most. But almost all of the women of District Four could weave a descent net.

Lila.

The way she had spoken to me the previous night, it was like she felt as though I was made of stronger stuff than the other contestants, which was probably a good thing. I was certainly capable of killing, as I had discovered that afternoon, sticking a knife in a twelve-year-old boy who had yet to attack me.

But then, Blaise wasn't just a helpless young boy. He'd already proven deadly. So deadly, in fact, that the Careers had taken him on for a time. Killing him had been necessary.

Yet killing Blaise had been in the protection of others. If he had just walked past me, I would have left him to walk away from the lake, searching for whoever killed the dead tribute on the beach. Maybe I would have heard the cannon to signal his death anyway. There were still about ten of us. Someone else might have been poised, ready to kill him or be killed by him.

It was an odd sensation, sleeping in a tree. I couldn't get up very high, so I had to hope that nobody came my way. I don't think there's anyone I wouldn't put it past to kill me in my sleep, and Stella was already proven capable of doing so.

On day six, the lake was still unguarded, so I made myself attempt to spear fish, hoping to get some meat in that day. I was struggling to spear the fish. I was used to a trident, with its three prongs just made for spearfishing. It's too bad I hadn't had to opportunity to show the Gamemakers my skill with one. I'm sure they would have put one in the Cornucopia if I had.

After nearly an hour of failed fishing, I sat down on the bank, frowning. Even one of Alana's carved wooden harpoons would have been welcome in that moment. I almost didn't notice the silver parachute fall from the sky, carrying downward a grand silver trident.

A trident.

Mags had pooled the monetary gifts of my sponsors and gave me a trident. It had to have been absolutely exorbitantly expensive. Even if I survived, I would never have a chance to thank the people who had given me this gift face-to-face. The best way I could thank them was by winning, so I would just have to win, for my sponsors… for Lila.

I caught a couple of small fish and stuffed the meat into one of the rolls I still had from the first day. It almost tasted like a decent meal.

The rest of the afternoon was spent making nets and land traps out of the vines in the nearby trees. Now that I had a trident, I had a solid plan, and as long as I stayed near the water source, I wouldn't have to hunt people down. They would come to me. All I had to do was set my traps and wait.

I did so, setting traps all along the lake line in the forest. If the girl from ten stuck in the hills, I would have to think of another way to kill her, but this served my purposes best for the time being. Then I climbed back up into my tree and waited, looking up at the sky, reordering my pack, waiting for the faces of the dead.

But no one died on day six. Such a thing was never good, and I couldn't help but wonder how the Gamemakers would try pushing us together that night, or the next morning. After all, we couldn't allow the Capitol to get bored.

Whatever was done, it hadn't affected me at all. Probably because I was right where they wanted me, right on the edge of the lake. I checked from my tree to see if anyone was visibly guarding the water before coming down from my tree, fishing, eating, thinking, making more nets. I spent the morning on this, because I knew that checking the traps I had already set would take all afternoon. I had to be prepared not to stop as I went about that task.

So that afternoon I started checking my traps, beginning on the far side of the lake and working my way back toward my own hiding place, not wanting to waste energy when I had finished for the day. For about half the lake, there was nothing to even suggest that the traps had been disturbed, much less that I had caught anything.

I knew that other tributes with knives might manage to cut themselves out before I had gotten there, but it was also important to know how strong the vines were compared with the knives of the tributes, and if I would be able to hold my catches for long, or if I had to check more often.

When I had gone about halfway around, I came across a trap that had not only been disturbed, but was holding the boy from District Ten, who was about my age. I went forward cautiously, pretending not to know what was going on.

"Hey," I said softly, frowning at him. He looked up at me with relief. "How long have you been in there?"

"About… I don't know," he whispered. "Half hour, maybe an hour. Somewhere in there."

"Do you have a knife?"

"Yes, but it wouldn't cut through," the boy said sullenly.

That was certainly good to know. I had cut the vines with the spearhead, which was apparently made of sturdier material than the knivew.

"Well, then," I said slyly, "only one thing left to do."

I pulled up my trident, and for a moment I saw relief flash in his eyes, but the relief turned quickly to fear and horror as he watched the trident spear his body. He cried out in pain, and when I was sure he was dead, I cut down the net with the spearhead and replaced it with a fresh trap, going along my way. I heard the cannon as I continued to walk, and the hovercraft came for his body. All I had to do was to wait for people to get thirsty, and they'd all be sitting ducks.

I would win.

There were no more catches that day, and by the time I reached the edge of the forest once more, it was nearing nightfall. I climbed into a tree, made myself a small dinner of an apple and roll, and then looked expectantly at the sky, waiting to see how many people I had left to kill. The showing of faces told me that Evie also died somehow.

Eight of us left. Myself, Stella, Alana, Emilie, Tristin… The girl from Ten… Jenny and Leonidas. As far as I knew for sure, Stella's killing of Cora was the only kill the Careers had managed the whole of the game. Lila was right. They had turned out to be a rather poor group to tie ones hopes to.

The thought occurred to me that Lila had picked me on purpose that day, hadn't been casual at all about where she chose to sit, whom she chose to reveal her alliance to. She had chosen me because she was sure I would win.

And now I had to, just for her.


	5. Victory

The sun rose on the eighth day and I heard a cannon.

Someone was already dead.

I quickly checked to see if I was alone. There was no one at the lake that I could see, so I went about catching my daily fish.

I wondered vaguely as I spread the meat of my catch out over the roll if I would have enough days to really get into a routine of this, or if the Gamemakers would unleash some sort of thing to jolt me out of my comfortable zone. They liked that, the Gamemakers. Discomfort sold well in the Capitol.

I spent my afternoon checking nets again, and found a bit of prey quite quickly. Jenny, from District Five, was caught in a net on the far side of the lake, and from the looks of things, had been there all night.

"Hello," I said gently, causing her to stir. She looked at me with fear. "How long have you been here?"

"Hours," she said hoarsely, clearly not trusting me, unlike the boy from Ten. "There were snakes in the hills, drove us all to the forests. I saw Leonidas get bit, but I don't know if they were poisonous."

They must have been poisonous. Leonidas would have been the cannon that woke me up so early, and that meant it was likely a slow-acting poison. Perhaps others had been bitten as well.

"You got out without a bite?" I asked kindly.

She nodded.

"Good," I said. "Well, there's only one thing left to do."

Jenny had no hopes or illusions that I would let her go alive, unlike the boy from Ten. She braced herself for the blow, and her scream of pain was not coupled with surprise when the prongs of the trident sank into her body.

Once again, I cut the net loose, let her body fall, and set up a fresh trap in its place. It was a lovely little setup I had, I admitted to myself, and I got barely three nets down before I heard the cannon signaling her death.

There were no more in my nets that afternoon. As I climbed into my tree and prepared myself a bit of dinner, I wondered if it would go on like this for days, my killing one trap a day for days until I was the last one left. The Capitol would surely tire of that.

Of course, that isn't what happened, but I'm not sure if the Capitol was half as pleased with what did happen. It was all over rather quickly after that, making the 65th Hunger Games the quickest in history, quicker, even, than the year when half the tributes froze to death. In fact, what usually took two to three weeks was all over in nine days, by lunchtime, even.

The first catch of the day was in a net very near to where I slept, which is why I woke early. The sound of her squealing in surprise and struggling against the net woke me, and probably anyone else in the vicinity.

"Well, well, well," I said, smiling at the girl from District Ten. "It seems I've caught the one to beat."

"Please," she whimpered, struggling futilely against the net. "Please, don't do this."

"Sweetheart, I'd have to kill you sooner or later," I sighed. "Don't worry; it's probably quick and painless." I run her through with the trident. "For me," I add with a bit of a smirk as she screams. The audience ate that right up.

I cut down the net and set up another.

Four to go.

That afternoon, I was fishing when I heard a struggle coming from the trees. I whipped around, heard, "Stella, what are you doing?" and saw Tristin fall to the ground, a knife through his skull.

And there was Stella, not as voluptuous as previously but still far too gorgeous to be allowed, pulling her knife out of the body of her fallen comrade. The cannon went off, and she made her way toward me, allowing the hovercraft to pick him up.

"Hello, Finnick," she purred. "I think it's time you and I team up."

My eyes narrowed. What was she playing at?

"Why?" I snapped. "What have you seen?"

"Let's just say," she said softly, running her finger teasingly down my chest, "that the sweet little thing from District Twelve is a hell of a lot more deadly than she looks, and I'm not facing her alone."

"What, Alana?" I said, confused. Alana could barely hurt a bug.

But that's what she had wanted me to think. Lila had even told me not to trust Alana, and that I would have to start thinking of her as an enemy. Was Alana secretly a killing machine?

"What did you see?"

"She found Emilie when we all had to flee the hills," Stella said, her big eyes looking up at me, her lips forming the words as though they were sweeter things than the story of murder. "She killed her with the knife, then carved her up good as she was dying. It was horrible, Finnick." She buried her face into my chest and I felt a strange swelling of pride. "I don't want to die like that. We need to stop her."

It was difficult to think through the things I needed to think through when her fingers were gently exploring my back, but I was able to remind myself that she was probably looking for the best place to stick her knife.

I pushed her away roughly.

"That would mean you and I would have to fight to the death, Stella," I said. "You really want to do that?"

"I know you would be merciful," she said urgently, as if begging me, moving in to embrace me again, but I pushed her back.

She meant I would be soft; I would be easy to manipulate, easy to kill, to trick. Lila was right. I couldn't let her talk me out of killing her, because she wouldn't be talked out of killing me.

"I don't think so," I hiss. "See, I know you, Stella, and that pretty face of yours isn't going to fool me. She's dangerous, yes, but so are you, and you've made one very, very big mistake."

She frowned questioningly.

"You've just shown me how you treat your allies," I say, nodding in the direction of where Tristin's body had been. "I'm not ending up with a knife in my skull."

In rage, she pulled her knife up, ready to strike, realizing that she would not gain me as a temporary ally, but I was already prepared, and my trident was through her before the knife was ready to throw.

She stumbled backward, looking up at me, surprised.

"I didn't think," she muttered, blood trickling out of her mouth as she spoke, "that you would do this, that you would actually kill me." She gave a cough and more blood spurt out. "I thought I was going to win. Kill her for me, Finnick. Don't let down our District."

I nod, pulling out my trident. She looked up at me questioningly, as if waiting for something else. She expects me to finish her quickly, but I'm not interested in that. She will die. There is no way for her to recover, but I wasn't going to prove her right.

"Sorry, princess," I spit at her. "You'll get no mercy from me."

As I walked away, I could hear her gurgle urgently, probably trying to shriek in horror, but her mouth and throat were so full of her own blood she couldn't make any other sound.

I climbed up in my tree and waited half an hour for her cannon and hovercraft. It was down to two. Alana and I would be facing off.

It was then that I realized that Alana, like Lila, had done nothing arbitrarily. Indeed, her mediocre score was probably much lower than she could have earned, but it was enough to get as high as she did, from her District. She didn't want to seem like too weak of an ally, but she didn't want us to worry about her. Lila had seen right through her, had warned me, essentially, that killing her wouldn't be easy, and she was right.

I was already feeling anxiety over the thought.

After all, Alana had been my ally, my… friend? I had saved her life, and she had been useful as well. It had been too soon since we parted ways, and I was having a hard time seeing her as my enemy. I would stay in my tree, though, until I had to go after her, until I _could_ go after her.

Somehow, killing Stella felt different than my other kills. Maybe it was because she was from home. Maybe it was because she was such a pretty girl. Maybe it was because no boy from my school would ever speak to me again. Whatever it was, it hurt.

I wondered if I should wait for Alana to come to me, or if I should go after her. Since I didn't know where she was, I was feeling a bit more comfortable with staying where I was, but I could be waiting for days. I wasn't sure if she'd found another source of water, or if she had figured out my traps. Perhaps she was drinking water at night, coming in from the hillside, staying well away from the area of the traps.

Of course, I wasn't sure how she might know such things, but I definitely knew that Lila wouldn't want me to underestimate her, either. And being underestimated was exactly what Alana was banking on. The little girl from District Twelve, sweet as pie, not sure if she could do anything else with a knife but carve…

The knives.

I had left her with a knife, and suddenly I knew it was the one thing that could easily mean my death if I didn't watch myself. With Stella, I knew she was a knife thrower, and she lost her advantage because I knew her skill so well. But with Alana… Would she throw it, or did she need a close range? How deadly was she, exactly?

She had seen exactly where I cut Blaise to kill him quickly. I had taught her all she needed to know to kill me, even if she maybe hadn't known before. I shivered a little bit. Had that been her plan all along? Was she always intending to go along until she learned from the bigger and stronger how to play the game and then break away, taking out her unsuspecting opponents with their own methods?

It felt too calculated, too contrived, but I wasn't about to underestimate her. I had to live.

I went about checking my nets that afternoon, as always. I had managed to catch a rabbit in one, and ate it raw right then and there. I would need my strength for the showdown with Alana, and since that could be any minute, I had to eat whatever I could whenever I got the chance.

But there was nothing else in my traps, human or otherwise, and I was just about to return to the tree I had turned into my home away from home when I heard it: A voice, a girl's voice, calling out my name.

"Finnick!" it called tauntingly. "Finnick!"

It was Alana, and she was somewhere on the other side of the lake.

I stepped back out from the tree line, searching the edges of the forest with my eyes, but not seeing her. Then, she made her way out of the tree line directly across from me, so that we were standing on opposite shores of the lake, out of range of each other.

Her camouflage was excellent. Either she had perfected it after we parted or she had been holding out on her true skill level until she was no longer tethered to an alliance. My bet was on the latter.

"Alana," I called back.

"Come and join me, Finnick," she said, her voice teasing me.

I considered her for a moment. She would not let me settle this on my own terms. She would not come to me, because she knew that eventually I would lose my patience and go to her. The question was did I wait for my patience to run out, or get her while I still had the rabbit in my belly?

It was probably better to just get it over with.

The next question was whether I ought to walk around the lake or swim across it. Swimming was dangerous, of course, because of the eelrays, but walking around would take a lot of time and energy I didn't want to waste just before fighting for my life. Eelrays typically stuck in the shallows. If I dove in to a deeper part and kept close to the surface, I should be safe. Certainly, Alana would be expecting me to trek around the lake.

I walked a little way around to a large boulder, climbed to the top, and dived into the lake, about six feet from the shore, swimming as fast as I could with a trident in my hand, which was quite fast. The look of shock on her face when I came to shore was priceless.

"Hello, kitten," I said just after I burst out of the water, trident in hand. "How are you faring, love?"

"Well enough, Finnick," she said, regaining her calm demeanor. "Did my ears deceive me, or are we really the only two left?"

"No, you're quite right," I said softly, looking around her immediate person for her knife. It wasn't visible. It must be up her sleeve. "Just us."

"I see," she said softly. "I suppose we ought to fight now, eh, Finnick?" She opened her arms wide. "Well, go on then, kill me. I know you're going to win. I don't stand a chance."

Ah, she knew I wouldn't kill her without any sort of victory on my part. She knew I had a sense of honor, and she was using it against me, likely to trick me into attacking.

"Now, we both know that's not true, don't we, kitten?" I whisper. "What is it you've got plotted, hmm? Loose a knife at my throat as I leave it unprotected for the attack? I don't think so. I think you're going to have to come at me, Alana. That's the only way I see this working."

We circled each other suspiciously. Apparently she decided that it was safe to show me her knife, since I knew where it was, and it fell from her sleeve into her hand in an expert manner. She'd practiced that somewhere, at some time.

"Well, well, well," I muttered. "Kitten's got claws. Let's see if she knows how to use them."

I thrust my trident at her, but she dodged it and made a run for me as I recovered from the thrust. It seemed she wasn't comfortable throwing the knife after all, or at least not until she was sure she wouldn't miss. After all, I could hold on to my weapon once I'd used it, where she would have to go after it.

We spared like that for what seemed like hours, but it was probably more like twenty minutes. She managed to knick my arm, and I managed to cut her thigh. We were both losing a fair amount of blood, but one of us had to die.

"You know, they all underestimated you," I panted, swinging my trident back at her, which she deftly ducked. "I don't think most of the contestants thought you'd last the first few days. But not Lila. She saw right through you."

"Oh yes, Lila," Alana said sardonically. "Jack didn't listen to her when she actually told him she didn't want me in our alliance. I think he thought I was pretty and harmless, someone he could pick off when he got closer to the end, like Ellie. She was very perceptive."

"She saved my life," I spat. "She told me to part ways with you after she died. No doubt you would have killed me in my sleep."

She smirked as she managed to slice my left thigh.

"Now, now, Finnick," she sighed, "I think you're confusing me with your dear Stella. I prefer to watch the light leave my opponent's eyes. I don't have to wait to know if they're dead."

"Like how you killed Emilie?" I spat. "Did you enjoy that, Alana? Did you like cutting her up into little pieces and watching her bleed to death?"

She managed to upend me straddling me and sitting on my torso.

"Absolutely," she snarled, "and I'm going to enjoy doing the same to you. Hold still, love, this will only hurt a bit." She giggled. "I hope."

She brought the knife up to my cheek.

"Time to fix this pretty face of yours."

But before she broke the skin, I managed to swing my body forward, topple her light frame off of me, and quickly position and thrust my trident straight into her before she knew what was happening. She gasped in pain, looking up at me in surprise.

"I really thought," she whispered, tears filling her eyes, "that I was going to go home. Forgive me Finnick. I just wanted to go home."

My heart softened. There was no way for her to kill me now, so I pulled her knife from her hand, leaned down and whispered, "I forgive you, Alana. And I'm sorry."

She closed her eyes and I slit her throat, carefully and quickly killing her. The cannon went off and the hovercraft came, first to take her away, then to lift me up into the skies, the trumpets and the voice of Claudius Templesmith congratulating me on my victory, but it felt incredibly hollow as I ascended into the hovercraft, back to the Capitol, the last man standing.


	6. Welcome to the Victors

It took several days for them to make me look "normal" and "healthy" again. I found myself lying in an unfamiliar bed in a sterile sort of room with a stiff feeling like I'd been in one spot for days. I knew I must have been sedated, and probably brought in and out of consciousness for feeding, but I couldn't seem to remember any of it. I managed to get to my feet, looking around for clothes and finding a tribute outfit at the foot of my bed.

Ah that's right, I would be meeting up with my team as soon as I got out of this room, on camera, for the first time since winning, for the whole of Panem to see.

I pulled on the clothes, took a deep breath, and began searching for some sort of doorway. But there didn't appear to be one. Just as I was about to start panicking, a part of the wall opened up and allowed me into a corridor. Knowing I would be on camera, I straightened myself up, looked down one end, then the other, and found Mags, Meredith, and Minna waiting for me at the end. They looked pleased to see me, and although I wanted to rush down there and hug them all, I walked down to them in the most composed way possible.

They greeted me happily, although Mags was clearly sad about Stella.

"I knew it would be you, though," she said softly. "Once Stella started plotting against her allies, I knew she wouldn't make it. You'll see once you sit down to watch the replay with Caesar. There's not a surer way to find death than to turn on those you've sworn to help, especially so early."

"I wish someone else would have had to kill her," I admit, "but I'm just happy to be alive at the moment."

"And what a great job you did, too!" Meredith cried. "Oh, so splendidly done!"

I smiled at her. She really was such a sweet woman, and seemed so genuinely pleased that I'd managed to kill the others before they killed me.

"Thank you, Meredith. It was really an honor."

But the words felt empty and dusty in my mouth, completely false. I had been raised to see honor in not only competing in, but also winning the Hunger Games… but all I felt was hollow. I didn't feel victorious or impressive or powerful. I had killed, what, half a dozen people, and for what? Just so I could stay alive. So I could live another day. So my District, fairly well-fed and content, could have a bit more food while Alana's family would have to struggle to make ends meet just like every other year, and maybe her little sister would starve to death. That was something that hadn't really occurred to me in the arena. The girl wouldn't be old enough to take tesserae, and Alana was dead.

Still, I smiled for the cameras and went about the duties prescribed for me by my stylist, mentor, and escort. My prep team did me up. My stylist dressed me in another almost-suit, and Mags told me to just keep on smiling, keep on being charming. It wasn't as uncomfortable as it had been when I first tried to go about my work. She said I was doing a good job.

I didn't feel like I was doing a good job. I felt like a monster. I felt like an empty, soulless monster and all the families of the children I had just killed would have to watch me watch their children die all over again.

It was an odd sensation, sitting there, watching myself stab the boy from Ten, watching Alana slice up Emilie, to watch myself run Stella through and, unmercifully, let her bleed out on the shore. And the whole of Panem was watching me watch myself be a ruthless killing machine. I kept my face as passive as I could manage, not wanting to act as though I condoned of my own actions, and certainly not wanting to act as though I disapproved of the Games.

I had done splendidly. I made it through the replay and then was dismissed by Caesar Flickerman's telling the citizens of Panem to be sure not to miss my live interview the following day. I made it back to my floor, rushed to my room, curled up in the bed, and just stared blankly ahead. Mags came in to check on me before too long, probably concerned.

"Finnick," she said softly, sitting down beside me a sympathetic look in her eyes, "is it killing Stella or Alana?"

"Neither," I whispered. "It's not being able to save Lila. Why didn't you let me save her, Mags?"

"She wouldn't have wanted you to," Mags said quietly, patting my head gently. "It was her time in the games, and she would have been killed anyway. At least her parents have an intact body to bury, unlike Emilie's."

It hadn't even occurred to me that Lila would have known that this would be the most likely end by Alana's hand. She really did know what was going on, maybe from training sessions, maybe from intuition. She had had a very strong sense of intuition.

"Does the guilt ever go away?" I whispered. "Will I ever feel like I did the right thing?"

"No," Mags admitted, "but it does fade, with time. You might have trouble sleeping tonight. It's not uncommon. Let me know if you need anything."

I did need her that night, because the nightmares were overwhelming, but I just stayed in my bed, not telling her, not wanting to seem weak. And really, what would they do? Give me more Capitol drugs and make me dependent and subjugate me to them even more? But that wouldn't solve any problems. I wanted to be less dependent on the Capitol, not completely under their power.

I barely slept a half hour all night, as a result.

The following morning at breakfast, I turned to Mags, hoping to start thinking forward.

"So I have the Victory Tour," I said, "and then I come back to mentor?"

She nodded and smiled, setting down her fork and giving me that grandmotherly look.

"You'll be quite sick of me, I'm afraid," she said kindly. "You'll be seeing an awful lot of Meredith and me. And then next year, we'll be together the whole time, and they'll probably be far more than nine days. Oh, that reminds me, after the interview tomorrow I want to introduce you to a few of the other mentors, get you on speaking terms with them next year, just in case we've got to deal with them. It's also good to know the personalities and strategies of the people who are designing the personalities and strategies of the other tributes."

It felt strange to hear her talk about mentors designing personalities, but the more I thought about it the more I realized how incredibly and absolutely accurate that was. They molded us into the people we needed to be for the Games, and I guess it's not something we ever really are allowed to leave. We were fixtures of the games, familiar faces the people of the Capitol grow to expect year after year. Once the Capitol sees us that way, they except us to be that way for the rest of our public lives, which for the losers is a short while, and for the Victors can be a very, very long time, as evidenced by Mags herself.

"Of course," I said genially. "Many of them?"

"Oh, a few," she said with a cryptic smile. It was strange to see such an expression on her face. It was almost sly, crafty. I was still trying to figure out what her angle had been during her own games. "Probably around ten."

Ten? Ten was far more than a few. Still, she wouldn't ask me to meet nearly half the mentors if she didn't think it was important.

I met up with Minna, who dressed me up in my almost-suit once more, ushering me out onto the stage for my interview, where they got me situated in the fancy Victor's chair and Caesar Flickerman smiled at me, asking if I was ready.

I lied and said I was, because really, would they have waited? No. the truth had little purpose in the Capitol.

And just like that, we were live to all of Panem. It was strangely different from the other interview situation. Caesar Flickerman was smiling is wide smile and greeting the invisible audience, because for this live feature, it was just Caesar and me, having a little chat, or at least, that was the idea.

"So, Finnick, tell me what it felt like on that first day, the mad dash for supplies, the rushing into the forest with your alliance, only to lose half your allies in the first twenty-four hours."

"To be honest," I said, "I don't really remember much of that first day. It was all such an adrenaline rush."

"I bet," Caesar said eagerly. "Tell me about discovering the muttations in the lake," he continued. "Tell me a bit about those first moments when you realize you and Alana have both been poisoned by the eelrays."

We go through all of the events like this, one by one, me telling Caesar how I felt about each event.

"The last few days were pretty rough on you," he said sympathetically. "What was Lila's death like?"

I paused for a moment, collecting myself.

"I wish she hadn't died like that," I managed to say softly. "I wish she hadn't gone so painfully, because she was truly and extraordinary girl and I will have nothing but the utmost respect for her and the people of District Eleven for the rest of my life."

"Speaking of extraordinary girls, we had quite the women this year, didn't we?" Caesar said after giving me a solemn nod, a bit a smirk playing at his lips as soon as the nod was over. "Between Stella and Alana, some of us were actually wondering if you were going to make it out of there alive. Could you walk me through your feelings on that last day when you killed those three girls?"

I felt bad because I still didn't know the name of the girl from District Ten, but I nodded and took a deep breath.

"My first kill of the day felt like all of the others," I said. "She was in a net, and I speared her. I don't even know what I was feeling because it was more of a routine at that point than anything. But Stella, obviously, Stella was different."

"Tell me what that was like, Finnick. Did it bother you, having to kill her?" Caesar pressed.

"Maybe a bit," I admitted. "I know there were a lot of boys at home hoping she'd come back."

"What do you have to say in your defense?" he asked, teasing. It was interesting to have him treating me that way, considering we were talking about my killing another human being, but I went with it.

"That they would have been waiting a long time," I answered with a smile, "because Stella never batted her eyelashes at the same boy twice."

Caesar gave a rather appreciative laugh and then said, "How did you feel after killing her? Any regrets about leaving her to bleed like that? Do you wish you would have done it differently?"

I paused for a moment, trying to think about how to say it.

"Of course, I had regrets about having to kill her," I said slowly. "It's always a shame to take something beautiful out of the world. But I have no regrets at all about how I killed her."

Caesar frowned and said, "Didn't think it was too brutal?"

"No," I insisted, shaking my head vigorously. "No, I think it fit her just right."

I wasn't about to admit I had been taunted into the brutality on national television. I wanted it to look as though I had meant all along for her to die that way.

"All right, so let's look, by contrast, at Alana," he said. "No hugging here. You to go straight for it with minimal dialogue, just lunging at each other. You do an incredibly harsh battle with some basic wounding, but nothing fatal, for quite a while before either of you goes in for a real advantage."

"How long did that last, by the way?" I asked with a grin. "It felt like ages in the moment."

"It was quite a while," Caesar said with a nod, "I think you were at it for about half an hour. There was no affection between the two of you, nothing like it, and then instead of letting her bleed to death, you actually grant her mercy and kill her more quickly. Why?"

The thought had plagued me for a while as well. Alana had been out to kill me as long as Stella did, and she even played as though she wasn't quite convincingly, so shouldn't I have been angry about her tricking me?

But I guess that it was because I respected her. She had fooled me, whereas Stella, the expert at fooling people, had failed.

"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "It just felt right." I paused, and then said, "Honestly, it may even be because I just wanted to get out of there."

Caesar laughed, just as I knew the audience in the Capitol was doing, but I knew that really had nothing to do with it. Still, I was required to keep putting on a show, so I put on the best show I could for the three long hours.

When the interview was finally over, Mags led me off the stage and said, "I've got a few people I'd like you to meet."

She had me shake hands with Lyme of District Two, the Victor of the 52nd Games; Alondra of District Eleven, Victor of the 33rd Games; Beetee and Wiress of District Three, the Victors of the 37th and 43rd Games; Jonas and Callie of District Eight, Victors of the 26th and 40th Games; Blight of District Seven, Victor of the 60th Games; Chaff of District Eleven, Victor of the 45th Games; and lastly, Haymitch Abernathy of District Twelve, the infamous winner of the 50th Games, the second Quarter Quell, and a known drunkard.

"I'm sorry about Alana," I said as I shook his hand.

"Don't worry about it," he slurred. "She was a bitch."

I blinked.

"Right," I muttered. I looked him up and down, frowning at him, unsure exactly what to make of this man who clearly hadn't given Alana any advantage during her time in the arena, despite the fact that she had been the most promising tribute District Twelve had had in my lifetime, which of course, meant since he had won all those years ago.

I didn't like the idea of having to work with him, but most of the other Victors seemed all right, and Blight was surprisingly friendly, despite the fact that I was unable to keep my allies from District Seven alive.

I guess if I'd kept them alive, I would have had to kill them eventually, anyway.

The train ride home was long and not particularly interesting. Meredith accompanied Mags and I all the way back to District Four, Meredith chattering on about how great it will be to have two mentors working with her the following year and that she was sure we'd get two wins in a row and how lovely the cheese was at lunch.

In her defense, the cheese was rather good.

But I spent the whole train ride thinking of the faces of the people I killed, about what I would have to say to Stella's family when I met them back home, much less the families I would meet on the Victory Tour.

The Victory Tour… I would be going around from district to district, meeting the parents of the dead, as well as their community members, neighbors, friends… What they must think of me. I hoped that District Eleven would be friendly, after the obvious friendship Lila and I had developed. It would be too much to hope that Twelve would be forgiving of my killing Alana, considering the fact that I saved her life once, then made her death as swift as possible.

But there was no way around it. Facing Stella's parents would be painful, and I'd never be able to look them in the eye. Not only did I kill their beautiful daughter, their pride and joy, but I left her to bleed out on the beach. Then, in my live national interview, I actually said she deserved it. What sort of cruel monster was I? What sort of horrible person would they see me as?

I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, because all too soon we had pulled into the station at District Four, and Mags and I would face the crowd of cameras and family members.

My mother and father were there, reaching out, ready to kiss me eagerly as I stepped off the train. My father roared that he was so proud of me, and the cameras made sure to catch that particular interaction. My mother just wept, hugging me tightly, obviously thrilled beyond words that her only child made it out alive. Reporters asked her how she felt and she simply kissed my face and hugged me tightly.

Truly, there weren't any words strong enough, anyway.

**A/N: This is the end of this part of the story. If you'd like more Finnick (wouldn't we all?), please keep your eyes peeled for **_**The 66**__**th**__** Games: Scarlett's Story**_**. It will probably be longer, and will have two viewpoints. Cheers!**

**-J**


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